The programme
Three courses, 44 sessions, an exercise at the end of every one. Browse the sessions below; open one to read it.
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Course One
The Design, and Why It Fits Us
Week One: The Third Door
1The Two Doors and the Thirdthe lived apologetic; Deuteronomy 4:5-8; election for the outsider; the four moves.2Who This Is Forthe wounded, the loyal, the leaders; systems before villains; why good people resist good designs.3This Is Your Wisdomwhat the Bible means by wisdom; the wisdom of the nations; where the two part ways; the glory of God to conceal a thing.Week Two: What the Design Actually Says
4Mandated, Modelled, Freesix criteria for sorting the New Testament's practices.5The Inventorythe assembly's purpose is edification, not worship; the nine mandated items.Week Three: Grace Perfects Nature
6The Prediction the Doctrine MakesAquinas on nature, the four causes, form, and privation.7The Creature the Design Assumesbelonging, self-determination, attachment, and the communal relationship.Week Four: Good Ground
8The Soil and the Seedthe parable of the soils as a lesson about environment; formation and habit.9The Room Itselfsociopetal and sociofugal space; affordances; the size convergence.10ExcursusThe Manner Is the Message: purpose, method, and translation; the two restaurants; Bucharest and the orphanage; adoption needs a method shaped like a family.Week Five: Genuine Love
11What Love Requires Structurallythe three levels of cost; safety; pluralistic ignorance; Matthew 18 as protocol.12The Honour Inversion1 Corinthians 12:22-25; status generalization; the household and the ecosystem.13ExcursusThe God Who Looks at the Poor -- the whole-Bible case, and Acts 6 as the inversion applied to office and money.Week Six: The Healing Environment
14The Therapeutic Communitywhat a healing community is and is not; casual is not flat.15A Training Locus, Not a WardHebrews 5:11-6:12 read whole; healing is for deployment.Course Two
The Captivity: How the Family Became a Business
Week One: How Institutions Bend
16The Bending Principleisomorphism; 1 Samuel 8 and a king like all the nations; Romans 12:2.17The Five Stagesthe whole arc previewed; every culture bends it.Week Two: Greece
18When the Question Changedhousehold to school; disciple to student; the philosophers' question.19The Cost of the Vocabularythe centre of gravity, the criteria of competence, the test of belonging.Week Three: Rome
20Constantine and the Basilicathe courtroom, the vestments, kleros and laos.21The Government Formdiocese and canon law; every ingathering imports gods.22ExcursusThe Government Jesus Brought -- why a religion that becomes a state cannot stay clean.Week Four: Europe
23Christendombaptism as civic registration; nobody chooses; assurance anxiety as structure.24What Territorial Religion Doeswhen everyone is a Christian the word describes nothing.Week Five: America
25The Religious Marketdisestablishment, the upstarts, revival as technique.26The Inner Workingsthe market's incentives and the factory's form; the self-made man and the plural you.Week Six: The Natural Environment
27The Housethe texts, the arc, warmth over rigor, and the psychology of household formation.28The Repurposed BuildingBasil's Basiliad; a building justified by Tuesday.Course Three
What Now: Recovery Without Coercion
Week One: The Engine
29No Wonder You Cannot Believethe honour economy; John 5:44; the receipt; Diotrephes.30What the Church Is Built Onprayer, teaching, good works; the subtraction test.31ExcursusThe Seat Nobody Should Want: how a glory-heavy structure turned men and women against each other; disciples, not members; let the woman learn; one Master, and all ye are brethren.Week Two: The Spectator
32How the Room Made SpectatorsEphesians 4:11-12; social loafing; active learning.33Systems, Metrics and Passive Christianityleverage points; Goodhart's law; the Theranos case.34ExcursusMembers One of Another: personal faith, not private faith; what individualism does to the person; the research on serving; how the specialist turns a church into a business.Week Three: Leadership
35Pluralityfour arguments; Asch's ally made permanent; the overrule test.36Who Seeks Poweremergence against effectiveness; Gideon and the ephod.Week Four: Money
37The Four Categoriessettled elder, itinerant, dependent, family mutuality; the weakest joint named.38What Payment Doesthe working elder; crowding out; the common purse.Week Five: Presence and Good Works
39The Church Present Nowherethe commuter church; good works as evidence that must be seen.40Seek the Peace of the CityJeremiah 29; collective efficacy; the contact conditions.41ExcursusA Brother Offended: why groups that start together become enemies; love one another as evidence; how the design works against the drift; how people and societies change.Week Six: Recovery
42Teach Before Touchno instrument for compelling the will; the circle; the little church within the church.43ExcursusNo Cloke: why "no church is perfect" cannot excuse us; the Spirit upon versus the Spirit within; the express image; more given, more required; flawed people, chosen structures.44Subtraction, Resistance, and the Person Doing Thisthe change calculus; the twelve-month plan; go set the table.